You are right, VIII is deserving of more credit I suppose. But a lot of my rankings are extremely influenced by sentimentality of many years. For example, when I do another post from 5-1, obviously IX will be in the top 5 somewhere, but how much of that higher rank is due to the game being great, compared to just my own personal memories I associate with the game with rose tinted glasses?

I genuinely have no idea. I can't even trust my own ranking haha

So with VIII, I just don't have those rose tinted glasses. More like metallic blue-tinted glasses with a reminder of how annoying it was to work with the tacky junction system. I guess I didn't play it during a particularly meaningful stage of my life?

Regarding IV - I've got the pixel remaster on my desktop so I can't forget to play it after VI! Especially will now I have some confirmation it's worth it =D